By Jim Rossignol on October 22nd, 2009 at 12:04 pm.
We’ve been following this Ukrainian shooter since the first footage appeared a couple of years ago. Metro 2033 appears to be what THQ did after the split with GSC, and it has the same dark-future apocalypse vibes as Stalker. This time it’s set in a Moscow ravaged by monsters, with the survivors of the apocalypse hiding in the Russian capital’s epic metro system. It’s got a strong “Russian Fallout” whiff to it, which echoes what a 1c boss said to me last year about their love of the game. THQ’s blurb reads: “You are Artyom, born in the last days before the fire, but raised Underground. Having never ventured beyond your Metro Station-City limits, one fateful event sparks a desperate mission to the heart of the Metro system, to warn the remnants of mankind of a terrible impending threat. Your journey takes you from the forgotten catacombs beneath the subway to the desolate wastelands above, where your actions will determine the fate of mankind.” Anyway, go take a look, this is very promising.
Looks fantastic. Is it me or are Russian games just very very good at the moment?
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I think they do looks very god, and the fact that major western productions exhaust themselves with boring sequels and the concept of the week does help.
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Russian devs certainly don’t seem to get acute angst from making games challenging, complex and original, unlike most western devs.
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“Western” devs are into corporate culture, and a different view. If else, western devs are needed because add variety. I would love to say the same to the asia game culture, but is like a separate thing :-/
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Oooooh yeaaaaa, this is that pretty looking game i heard about once.
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Wow. That looks very nice. Games from the east are really something of late. I do wonder if this will be as buggy as stalker, but then again it looks fairly high-budget for a Ukranian game.
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Looks like stalker, but more lively, and more human? (ish)
Looks awesome..
also, they reused sound from the original stalker! (the guy going “have a safe trip”)
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THQ again? Ohh, they came back to their old publisher, after the problems in Stalker development.
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It’s not a GSC game its a different developer
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I bet they got some ex-GSC devs on board though, even the engine looks feels like STALKER.
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1) it’s an ukranian game. there is a difference. not only in the language, the country is also located somewhere else than (although near to) russia
2) the “east” is still developing games for different demographics and PC is still the biggest market there, so they do develop games instead of disappointing, sloppy shadows of games aimed at everbody.
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word.
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Agreed.
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Looks a lot like STALKER in style. Here’s hoping it plays somewhat differently.
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I was going to be all “more like Hellgate: Moscow, amirite?”, and then I watched the trailer and it looked pretty awesome.
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I quite liked the openish style of Stalker, hoping for more of the same just with better polish on release.
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It’s from Ukraine, not Poland!
Oh, wait.
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Does anybody know whether its a straight shooter? It looks like it could turn out kind of boring without RPG elements. More importantly, is the world “open” (as in, roamable)?
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Hellgate: Moscow ?
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i don’t think it looks like stalker at all tbh, more like hellgate although it’s hard to tell from such a short clip.
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“i don’t think it looks like stalker at all”
The main image is of people sat in a gloomy place watching someone play guitar.
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Since STALKER, any FPS/FPP game that features an acoustic guitar gets my interest! =P
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Games like these have a soul. And yes, we are still loyal to the PC here in East.
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They have my attention. I wonder if they are going to allow you to drive a subway train at any point, that would be a nice way to splat a big enemy.
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“Looks fantastic. Is it me or are Russian games just very very good at the moment?”
It’s Ukrainian game, just like Stalker.
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Jim Rossignol: Yes, but can you loot their corpses for tinned foods? It ain't Stalker without a pile of corned beef in your backpack!
Edit: Russian or Ukranian makes little difference to us- we don't speak the language! Anyway, it seems that eastern developers in general are more fun than western ones. Plus, all eastern games seem to take a long time to be released in English. Generalizations are in order, I feel.
Will rant for food.
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Any word on genre yet?
After the S.T.A.L.K.E.R labs and the opening sequence from Vault 101 I’m kind of looking forward to a fully linear game with the same “Apocalypse Then” feel. A better done Cryostasis would go down a treat with me.
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There should be a stalker mod which models malnutrition.
Much <3 for ex soviet bloc development, they have no fear of being confusing, unbalanced or difficult and a rampantly more exciting for it.
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Eastern European developers have good ideas and concepts, but the execution is often flawed. I dont think i have played an Eastern European game without massive amounts of bugs, with the possible exception of Kings Bounty.
Games like The Witcher, Stalker, Operation Flashpoint 1, Arma 1&2… all of them flawed in their execution and trying my patience regarding patches….
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I was very interested in this when it was first announced, this trailer has piqued my interest again.
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The Fallouts, though gloomy as hell for a majority of time, did occasionally get a bit goofy (especially Mothership Zeta and any of the easter eggs, fun as they were.) If this is sorta Fallout with the jet black soul crushing horror restored, it can only be a good thing.
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That’s basically what I’m hoping for in terms of the environment. Fallout 3, but actually a dark and terrifying place. The Fallout series in general was pretty tame in terms of the environment, it was generally a happy, sunny place with little threat to it. It lacked atmosphere is what I think I’m getting at.
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Oh cool, I thought this had died forever ago. Looks great.
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I say! That looks rather good, I especially like the areas with lots of refugees milling around, looks crowded but fun.
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COOL!
We need more Russian games! Great developers!
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Go East!
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Oh wow. Very nice, I’ll definitely be keeping an eye on that. Also: I’m a complete sucker for english spoken with a rrrrussian accent. Or maybe I’m just sick of the ubiquity of american english regardless of setting or context. Anyway: Metro! Yay!
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I’m all for it as long as the translation is decent. Nothing breaks my sense of immersion faster (looking at you, Space Rangers 2).
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I never found the terrible translation in SR2 particularly immersion breaking, mostly because the game was already so batshit insane that that the additional weirdness of bad translation actually added to the experience. Also, according to this clearly tongue-in-cheek reference in the manual, the translation’s not a bug, it’s a feature:
“Additionally, you may find that the language used, although it appears to be English, slightly odd. Again, don’t worry as in 2300 it was modified by non-Earth races to make it easier for their translation software to convert. “
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That’s a good opening, if playable.
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I like it. “In my experience “The east” is often brilliant when it comes to the underlying technical aspect of games (probably some of the world’s best coders) – they’re different and often daring. They’ve got charm, soul, creativity and give you worlds that feel convincing. What they generally need more of it is better testing. Let’s hope they’re willing to spend the time it takes to make this as bug free as possible.
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Apologies for the double post earlier, my browser spazzed up. Just looking at the main image above and it does seem hauntingly beautiful, in a dark apocalyptic way. Trailers rarely excited but I am for this.
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Wow.
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An eastern european game without terrible voice acting? This cannot fail
From their website, looks like they’ve made the engine themselves, the 4A-Engine. That is either a) Good or b) Bad
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And its based on a ‘cult russian novel’ again this is either a) Good or b) Bad
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Finally more news about this. I actually thought this was dead.
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It does look rather good but like most russian games it will play pretty woefully.
I can imagine it will be plagued by bugs and poor translations.
But I do really want to be proved wrong.
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Oh lord, I want this bad.
Russia, you rock!
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are these eastern european devs making games aimed at east (or russian) markets? or is it just that they happen to be there?
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Eastern promises these days, and I love the gun at the end.
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I reaaaally like the suggestion that in some areas you have to be careful about using a gas mask/oxygen supply then /timing/ yourself so you don’t overexpose or run out of oxygen.
More games like this please!
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Am I the only person here who thinks that games produces by the former USSR suck? In my opinion their ideas are wonderful but the implementation is always beneath what is acceptable. I thought Stalker sucked, even though I love the original novel. Same for that other game, the name of which escapes me, about a city in a steppe, dying of disease perpetuated by slaughterhouses. Brilliant idea yet poor execution. I could go on but you get the point.
It feels like the amount of creativity, storytelling talent, and willingness to take risk is much higher what what we see in the West. At the same time while the technical know-how may also be on the level, the ability to think through, polish, and finish is severely lacking, IMO.
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Is that a rhetorical question?
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This region is around a decade behind the West. That’s why they’re still producing games for these old genres that we love but haven’t quite polished them up well yet. Maybe they’ll reach a peak in a few years and then begin the steady descent into AAA console garbage.
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“The West” have produced some of the buggiest games in recent memory.
The difference is, bugs from the East seemed to be caused through ambition and pushing the limits. Bugs in Western games are from laziness or just complete lack of care.
/Generalisation
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@K – The bugs in any code are caused by poor design and poor testing, i.e. people not doing their job or people being unqualified to do the job they were hired for. It has nothing to do with either ambition or lack of care.
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I dunno, you’re always going to get bugs in code, even if it’s well designed and so on. Software design is about minimising bugs, not about eliminating them entirely. I think part of the thing about ambition is that it’s easier to fix a simple program than it is to fix a complicated one – so STALKER would have been easier to debug if it had been a linear shooter, I suspect.
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There’s also publisher- and/or budget-imposed scheduling to consider.
I wonder how many ultra-buggy western releases exist because a publisher demanded they get the game out by Christmas, or ultra-buggy eastern releases because the studio just ran out of money and needed to sell first, patch later. As compared to vice versa, that is.
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@Alric
But they’re working within budget and time constraints. An ambitious design could take much longer and so is untested and unpolished because the publisher is wanting to get it out of the door. So I attribute this to the ambition of the design causing the bugs. And certainly not because all Eastern Europeans are unqualified and incapable of programming. Post-release support and community interaction is often exceptional too.
My opinion, however, is biased. Not for Eastern Europe, but for the more niche appeal games. And I’m conscious of being more lenient towards them than AAA titles, which had the budget to test the game properly. So I often talk nonsense.
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Looks great, i loved almost everything about STALKER and anything following its steps interests me, i hope they add RPG elements tho, STALKER suffered by the inability to develop your character (artifacts were a real letdown)
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Excellent trailer; very good voice acting in the narration, too. I’m wondering, though – will this be a STALKERish RPG shooter, or more of a straight-up shooter? Given the mention of Fallout 3, I’m guessing it’s the latter, but who am I kidding, I’ll be buying the thing anyway.
Eastern Europe is turning into a creative powerhouse of game development. We’re seeing things that are both innovative and incredibly deep from them. Also somewhat nihilistic. Painkiller, STALKER, Cryostasis, etc etc etc…
I’d forgotten about this one. Thanks Jim!
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Stalker: Shadow of the Metro.
# Brave the darkness of the tunnels, where mutants hunt their prey and ghostly spirits lurk.
# Explore the desolate city-surface, trusting your gas mask and rifle to protect you from a poisoned world and the creatures that roam there.
Sounds a lot like stalker to me.
Given that there are still Stalker games being made, I hope they take a different direction with the structure of the game and the gameplay itself. A game that is too similar to Stalker will harm it’s success, imho.
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Its interesting too see all these former Eastern block games featuring nuclear apocalypse, I suppose you never really saw their side of things (you know, the normal people in USSR) during the Cold War, and now all of a sudden there is an explosion of stuff.
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Interesting perspective.
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Well we really had some kind of apocalypse here, moving from communism to free market shook things up well, so you can find lost of abandoned things (not only buildings and items but a whole system of values) laying around that seem from a different era though they are from the not so distant past.
You can see why such setting lends itself easily to other apocalyptic scenarios like nuclear for example.
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Also Russia has twice the territory of the US and twice less population, Ukraine also has small population density and is the biggest country in Europe – I bet you could drive 20-30 kms out of any town and feel like you are absolutely alone in this vast territory – great post-apocalyptic setting.
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I heard a stargate towards the end of that clip.
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So is Russia just so happy and full of light and fluffiness that the only way they can keep themselves sane is to create such gloriously dismal virtual worlds to spend leisure time in?
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Didn’t you hear, the old-Soviet block is a capitalist paradise now, they’re are lots of free-market bunnies hoping about and the only snow is swarming with children building Snow-men and laughing. Oh yeah, and the every evening everyone gets together and sings the sun to bed.
My actual experience of eastern-Europe, cold, wet and brilliant.
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God bless capitalism.
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I once thought of a post-apocalyptic game set in London where the surface was wrecked (though all of the wrecked buildings are based on the real buildings there now) and most decent folks have to live in the Underground because it’s safer. Basically like Hellgate without the demons and basing the combat-filled areas on the actual geography of London.
But Moscow isn’t a bad setting either.
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Wait, I just thought of another one – La Jetée: The RPG!
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That’s one game where you don’t have to worry about a low FPS.
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Oh brilliant a new trailer!
Paint me excited.
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Are subway stations the new sewers?
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I’m not sure how to define it, but there seems to be a common mood among some of the Eastern games I’ve really enjoyed. Even Cryostasis had it, despite some punishingly-bland gameplay. I’d take a setting like that over the typical U.S. gameworld any day of the week. That trailer is certainly enough to pique my interest.
Still waiting for Call of Pripyat, tho. What the heck is up with that?
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That’s one of the best damn game trailers I’ve ever seen. Understated. A good script read well. The crowd scene with the guitar. Wow.
I’ve never been interested in this genre (haven’t played Fallout or STALKER), but that trailer really made me want to play this game. I almost wouldn’t mind unskippable cutscenes with that actor voicing the main character.
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I completely read that comment as sarcastic at first.
And then I watched the trailer.
:O
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From what videos and screens are currently available, it looks to be very similar to STALKER in terms of atmosphere, but in terms of gameplay it seems like it will be a more straight FPS game.
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Interesting. Well, I tend to prefer a STALKERey open-world shooter type of game, but every now and then it’s nice to have a straight-up FPS. I’ve been so impressed with what’s coming out of Eastern Europe these days that I’ll buy the thing just to support them.
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For those who dont know, setting of this game is based on eponymous russian fantastic book, about ppl living in Moscow metro after nuclear war (judging by description of surface, tho it was more biological war)
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Yikes, very much STALKER/Fallout-vibes – in a good way though! I expected some corny russian developer to do the voce acting, but I was pleasantly suprised. Easily one of the better trailers ive seen in a while. Will keep my eye on this one.
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Wow, that looks really interesting! It seems to have that bleak-russian-gamey-atmosphere nailed.
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Oops. Make that bleak-UKRANIAN-gamey-atmosphere. :S
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Nice and understated trailer… I like what I see. And its not just poxy console either.
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Not really good. It’s stable, sidequests are good, but the main story is rubbish (I mean it’s worst in series) and high textures are available only in 64-bit OS. And they require 3 gig of ram to play comfortably. Presentation is awful, a lot of text and nothing of it goes in your notes, except PDA history you need to scroll through.
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shit, that was a reply to Stalker Call of Pripyat question
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very cinematic
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Instead of brown+grey now we get to look at blue+grey!
Yessss
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I know I’m going to sound like ‘that guy,’ but I was really psyched until I saw PC/360 release. I wish it didn’t, but it always makes me narrow my eyes slightly, and flat-out DOUBT the game when I see it on consoles. I immediately imagine terrible AI due to in-order-processing.
I enjoyed Fallout 3 which was multiplatform, but so many games that ARE on PC and console end up being awful for me.
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It’s something we have to judge game by game.
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That’s true, it’s just that NUMBERS wise I think ‘doubt’ is in the right mind-set. Buggy though stalker may be, imagine if it had been on the 360 as well, or (originally) Deus Ex, etc. It just seems that when the two are combined they both get the worst of eachother.
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I can’t work out if 4A Games are related to 1C? If it’s 1C I don’t think we need to worry about consolitis.
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Yeah I’m not sure if they’re related to eachother much. I assumed, perhaps wrongly, that 4A is the console-knowing part of 1c.
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Man, i really like that voiceover. I hope they keep that accent for everyone russian in the game.
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Find: Vault
Replace: Metro Station
Done before lunch!
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Would it be possible to put the “Page X of Y” above the comments?
Maybe in addition to it being at the bottom.
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Oh my. I’ll be watching this. Very closely. Maybe it will be STALKER-y, maybe not,. The trailer does not really have any indication. RPG elements would be nice.
**Now GSC can you please release CoP so I can play through it first? Not that I am complaining but I have been playing SoC with OL for ages now and want some new areas.**
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I also liked the 18 rating. Means that there is a good chance to get that true atmospheric feel that only the Eastern Slavs can make… (Dostoevsky anyone?)
(I was going to type of All the Russias, but I dunno if the Ukrainians would like that…)
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Why does everyone think this is a Russian game
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I have to say, more than the trailer I was impressed with the THQ embedded video player. Looks nice, and runs even better than embedded Youtube on this shitbox I’m currently browsing the internet on (Had to use a Firefox plugin to download the L4D2 leaked trailer in order to view it smoothly).
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There is no such thing like UKRAINIAN game. All these games are released by russian publishers and they have RUSSIAN atmosphere. Also ukrainians are same russians only in another country.
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By that logic wouldn’t all Ubisoft games be French? Generally it’s the nationality of the developers that matters, not the publisher.
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Read carefully. Ukrainians = Russians. Only ukrainian language is a dialect of russian.
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Read carefully. Ukrainians = Russians. Even ukrainian language is just a dialect of russian.
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I saw the nationalist silliness, I just chose to ignore it.
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Nationalists are orange Washington puppets eulogizing Nazi criminals. I just struggle for justice.
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You are one creepy dude. The Ukraine is obviously part of the Commonwealth along with Poland and Lithuania anyway.
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Ukrainian are not the same thing as Russians. Ukrainian is not a dialect of Russian. Stop the nationalist BS. It’s two separate countries. Soviet been has been gone for almost 20 years!
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PeKa, my russian friends would agree with you. Oddly enough, my ukranian friends would very much DISAGREE with you. And seeing as they live in their own country, I tend to think they are correct.
Stop swallowing Putin’s nationalistic ideas and please think for yourself for a moment, tovarish.
And I too definitely loved that corridor scene with all the poeple. Nice to see polycount being used for crowd scenes instead of having two or thee NPC’s in 100.000 poly’s each.
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“Country x is really part of country y! X-ians are really Y-ese!”
Must…not…invoke…Godwin’s Law…
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THIS.
THIS IS WHAT FALLOUT 3 SHOULD HAVE BEEN.
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Interesting bu there are still a hundred ways they can screw their good concept.
Also I didn’t see any gameplay in the trailer so I refuse to get excited about that one yet.
p.s. sorry for the negativism but GSC have already shown me how you can make pretty mediocre sequel/prequel even after you’ve worked so many years over something damn good and promising (cause well it could have been waaaay better) like S.T.A.L.K.E.R., and you should have known what is missing and what would make it nearly perfect…
So I just can’t get my hopes high for an unknown developer from the same region that has made a nice trailer and concepts but no game so far and it all looks a liiiitle bit like Stalker so far…
I hope 4A Games prove me wrong though.
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>Ukrainian is not a dialect of Russian.
Prove me wrong. I know what i’m saying.
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Ukrainian language is descended from Kievian Rus, which would not make it a Russian dialect, simply a related East Slavic language.
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/613050/Ukrainian-language
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In fact, modern ukrainian language is pretty artificial. Most of ukrainian citizen even don’t know that well. Instead of it they use so called “surzhik” – kind of russian dialect. I am unbiassed cause my mother is ukrainian and i were in Ukraine lot of times.
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Guys, a language is nothing but a dialect with an army and a navy. And Russian and Ukrainian devs have a lot in common. Especially in the way they differ from American or west European devs.
So. . . how about the apocalypse (say what you like, Beelzebub made the trains run on time)?
Will rant for food.
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I feel that it might be a bit too similar to Fallout…
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Color me impressed. Had never heard of this before but I’m quite looking forward to it now.
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“Not really good. It’s stable, sidequests are good, but the main story is rubbish (I mean it’s worst in series) and high textures are available only in 64-bit OS. And they require 3 gig of ram to play comfortably. Presentation is awful, a lot of text and nothing of it goes in your notes, except PDA history you need to scroll through.
shit, that was a reply to Stalker Call of Pripyat question”
Woah you scared me.
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Poland (of Witcher fame) is actually a part of Central Europe. But yeah, I know what you mean.
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Reply-system-is-broken-SMASH!
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This might be good i don’t kno.
I’ve played stalker and fallout (3).
And this looks very similar. (maybe too much)
I will check out the ratings of this before i buy it
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http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/metro-2033-hands-on
Here’s a Eurogamer Hands On.
All looked great, until at the end…
“The game is said to clock in at around 10 hours”
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! :(
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